Housefish Ashes Chair at Design After Dark 2013

by


We were very excited and honored to be asked to submit a piece for this years Design After Dark auction (this Friday, February 8th) to benefit the Design & Architecture department at the Denver Art Museum. This year’s theme is “Cirque,” and participants were randomly assigned one of three themes around which to base their piece: Tension, Contortion, and Illusion. We were given Illusion. This is what we came up with: the Ashes chair, a chair burned in a fire with nothing left to support its one remaining leg but its own shadow.

It’s fun to design something once in a while with no thought to practicality, production concerns, shipping, or any of the other factors you have to consider in a normal piece. Although I couldn’t resist taking the opportunity to further develop some of the solid wood CNC joinery methods we have been working on. Some of these details will eventually make their way into our normal product line.

We hear tickets are selling fast, and the event typically sells out. Be sure to say hi if you go.

Name This Chair and Then Receive It

by

EDIT- Thanks to Eliza A, our newest chair is named “Lock.” And huge thanks to everyone who submitted a name, we had some great choices to sort through.

These are the last three preproduction test articles of our newest product, which is now just about ready for production and shipping. The cool structural thing about this chair is the way the base loc
ks into the back during assembly and gives rigidity to the whole thing. It’s super comfortable, and of course uses FSC certified wood and zero VOC finishes and adhesives.

Internally we’ve been calling it Lambda, because it looks a bit like a Greek letter lambda, except that it doesn’t at all really. So the name kind of sucks.

If you can come up with a better name by 12/14/2012 (either leave a comment here, email us, or comment on the blog) you can have one all to yourself for free, in whatever color and finish you like.
Photo: Name this chair and then receive it. These are the last three preproduction test articles of our newest product, which is now just about ready for production and shipping. The cool structural thing about this chair is the way the base locks into the back during assembly and gives rigidity to the whole thing. It’s super comfortable, and of course uses FSC certified wood and zero VOC finishes and adhesives. Internally we’ve been calling it Lambda, because it looks a bit like a Greek letter lambda, except that it doesn’t at all really. So the name kind of sucks. If you can come up with a better name by 12/14/2012 (either leave a comment below, email us, or on Facebook) you can have one all to yourself for free, in whatever color and finish you like.

Essentia Natural Latex Mattresses

by

The guys from Essentia contacted me to let me know they had a new location in Denver. I had never heard of them, but they appear to make just about the ultimate mattress: 100% natural latex (from rubber trees, not synthetic), zero VOCs, made in Canada. The top layer is a latex based memory foam, and apparently the only non-synthetic memory foam on the market. I have always stayed away from memory foam, as it is typically made from petroleum and emits a host of VOCs, so this looks interesting. Anyone have one of these and care to comment?

New Door Color – Warm Gray

by


The results are in, and Warm Gray was the runaway favorite for our new 2012 color. This goes really well with our brighter colors, the brown undertone in the gray adds a soft counterpoint to a bright green, yellow, or blue. These doors are now in stock and ready to ship.

Back in Boulder!

by

We are super excited to be partnering with FACTORY|made, a super cool new retail space in Boulder. Their grand opening is later in February, but they are soft-open now, and already have a great collection of locally made and other creative goods. It’s actually much more than just a retail space, they will also have onsite fabrication and digital workshop space, and even a youth mentoring program. They are just down the street from Cured, and helping to turn that stretch of Pearl St into a really nice place to spend some time.

New from Housefish: Hex Modular Shelving

by

We are pleased to announce the imminent availability of our latest new product line: the Hex modular shelving system. The foundation of Hex is a custom hexagonal aluminum extrusion, which gives it incredible strength and stiffness, while still maintaining light weight. Like our signature Key line, Hex is very easy to assemble or disassemble, and is built to withstand whatever you pile on it. And of course, it emits no VOCs, contains no formaldehyde, and uses certified sustainably harvested wood. The hexagonal pattern in the sides echoes the cell structure of a beehive, but it isn’t just for show. The cutouts significantly lighten the structure for easier shipping, and add visual lightness as well.

Hex will be available in a variety of heights and widths, and units can be joined together with additional shelves to form a continuous wall of shelving. Unlike typical wood shelving, the stiff aluminum extrusions allow for very long shelf spans with no visible sag, even when heavily loaded.

The Hex prototype shown here is currently on display until February at the Design By Colorado exhibit at Denver International Airport’s terminal A bridge.

Kagen Schaefer Pipe Organ Desk

by


I’ve posted about Kagen Schaefer before- he’s an unbelievably talented Colorado woodworker (and mathematician) who produces incredible puzzle boxes. These are small boxes, which originated in ancient Japan, that require the user to complete a complex series of movements in order to open it. (Kagen is, incidentally, huge in Japan.) His latest big project is this desk.


At first glance, it’s a relatively ordinary desk, albeit very finely made out of exceptional wood, and with an unusual number of small drawers. Open a drawer though, and there’s a surprise- each drawer operates a wooden pipe organ tube on the back. Opening different drawers plays different notes and lets you play songs. If I stopped right there, a wooden pipe organ desk would already rank among the most novel and impressive pieces of wooden furniture either of us has seen.


But there’s another secret. Inside the desk is a fluidic computer, operated entirely by the air pressure pulses created by opening and closing the drawers. This has been programmed so that playing a predetermined sequence of notes opens a secret compartment somewhere on the desk. It’s also reprogrammable, so you can set it to open when you play the theme to Star Wars, or whatever you want. And in case it wasn’t clear, this is made entirely of wood; there are no electronics of any kind. It is literally something that could have been built using technology available 500 years ago.

Needless to say, I love this.